4 ms·

Judging the general quality of artwork is impossible IMHO, the best you can do is to decide of its significance in a particular timeframe and you might choose t

by mrtksn 3y ago

Judging the general quality of artwork is impossible IMHO, the best you can do is to decide of its significance in a particular timeframe and you might choose to preserve it as long as you believe its significant enough. Stuff usually makes sense within context, there's lot's of buzz for example on Twitter about how some old stuff was beautiful and the new one is ugly. They are doing this for political propaganda and money but there's a reason why people tear down the old "beautiful" stuff to build the new contemporary thing and when doing it they thought that the old stuff was bad for one reason or another. Some day in the future people will be preserving some all glass facade building for it's significance when everyone else has moved to this new thing. The historical significance is just one thing though, sometimes people preserve stuff for any reason. Sometimes, people preserve stuff because it's amazing that someone did this even if it's not a masterpiece in any way - like the restored version of Ecce Homo :)

sloowm 3y ago
Judging the quality is possible to an extent IMHO. You can see if an artist practiced their skills and techniques and you can see if precise pieces were done with care for instance. From the pictures it looks like there are parts that show real care but other parts that are kind of messy and maybe more half finished projects.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  That's just production precision, which I appreciate but many significant art pieces don't have much of that. If you don't like it, you don't like it(I don't like it too, I value mastery) but that doesn't say much about the quality or more importantly significance of the art.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Having at least one objective characteristic somewhere, somehow, is more than zero though.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      I don't know, it's like a having an essay with no grammatical errors. Does it make the essay any good? Sure, having a great essay written with lots of typos and grammatical errors can be hard to consume but on the other hand we, in the internet age, have some great stories called "copypasta" written horribly and people love those. They are culturally significant artefacts of a time period of the internet culture and their production is not so good. We have "HODL" which is a cultural phenomenon, which itself is a typo. We have numerous memes images of cultural significance which is made with very low production value because their original makers had a great idea but not very good image editing skills. I don't think that "production correctness" or "precision" is a metric that art can be evaluated on.
      - sloowm 3y ago
        In the case of an essay the quality can maybe be seen in correct grammar but mostly by the writer being able to convey the story well, make sentences people want read and other things. A cultural phenomenon is not art in my opinion. I think things can be made by people and found interesting and well liked without them being art just as a natural phenomenon can be interesting and well liked.
  - sloowm 3y ago
    Production precision is just one of the examples I gave. There are other things that can indicate the quality as well. In this particular case the art is painting and sculpting and those can be done with more and less quality. Of course there is modern art where it can seem like anything can be considered art but even in those cases there is often work and talent involved. Maybe it's through the selection of which works to make public or the storytelling with the art pieces or coming up with new experiments.
- jmull 3y ago
  But isn't it just your opinion that a quality work of art should appear to have a certain consistent high level of care throughout? It seems possible, if not likely, these were unfinished pieces that were in-progress when the artist died. Perhaps many of these would never have been finished no matter how long the artist lived. You might look at one and see what had gotten a lot of attention and what hadn't, maybe even see what had gotten attention first and what later, and wonder about exactly why. It's pretty interesting, IMO. Probably one good way to value art is its impact on the viewer. So that's obviously very subjective. But surely a variety is good. Or put it this way... the skillfully and richly crafted masterworks that you view in a museum are certainly worthy works of art. But if skillfully and richly crafted masterworks that you view in a museum are one of only a small set of forms of worthy works of art, you're putting art in a small, confining pen. That would really limit the impact it can have. Which, I think, means that's just a far too limiting a view of art.
dbspin 3y ago
Just to make a counter point - you're suggesting a completely modernist tabula rasa view of aesthetics, which doesn't seem to gel with observed human aesthetic preferences, whether in fine art or architecture. Our reactions to aesthetics are obviously culturally mediated, but that doesn't mean that they are exclusively culturally derived (culture too of course springing from shared evolution). Cross culturally to pick an uncontroversial example, we show a high expressed preference for windows, higher ceilings, less cramped rooms etc. This extends also to proportionality, symmetry, ornamentation etc. The very recent historic move away from aesthetically pleasing buildings has much more to do with economics and the priorities of industrial and post industrial society, than the choices of the citizens who have to live in frequently grim and alienating environments. Andries Kerpestien has a good series on some universal expressed aesthetic preferences in relation to architecture - https://casualrealism.substack.com/p/architecture-and-evolution-i-the?s=w https://casualrealism.substack.com/p/architecture-and-evolut...
- mrtksn 3y ago
  I agree with you completely about aesthetics, it's just that not all art or design has to serve the function of pleasing people. In some cases people want to induce fear, disgusts, sadness, sense of control, of greatness, of smallness, of oppression etc.
  - dbspin 3y ago
    I might humbly suggest that architects and architecture should rarely if ever be employed to induce fear, disgusts, sadness, loss of control, smallness, oppression etc. That fact that it all too frequently does so, especially in public housing and industrial architecture is my point exactly.
veltas 3y ago
> there's lot's of buzz for example on Twitter about how some old stuff was beautiful and the new one is ugly. They are doing this for political propaganda and money Some of us really do prefer the old stuff, not just for the politics and money!
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Sure, its just something else when you try to push a point or stir a controversy by constantly repeating "why they don't make things like that anymore" without actually looking into why they stopped and why they don't anymore.
  - veltas 3y ago
    I've often wondered if one reason we don't get amazing like-life paintings is because we have photos.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      We do get those, search for photorealistic paintings. It's just that they are not very popular and people don't value them much. They tend to be interesting only in the context of being a painting that looks like a photo. AFAIK with the proliferation of photography the people who used to do life-like painting of other people lost a lot of business and it seized being a profession.
      - veltas 3y ago
        I'm not literally saying we can't do them, just that as you say they're not popular.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    "because doing $contemporaryStyle is cheaper and more broadly appealing, and might even have some practical benefits. And it's cheaper not just because it's inherently more optimized or because labor is more expensive than it was back then, but because being the only one doing $oldWay means you don't have any scaling benefits and will struggle to find labor. Going with the herd is just inherently better value for money". There, free premise for a 1h youtube video. Just adapt it to architecture or cutlery or something.
exe34 3y ago
People tear down beautiful things and replace them with crap, because what's wrong with the beautiful thing is that it wasn't made by them. They want to leave their mark, like a dog pissing on a lamp post. We see it all the time in software UI, so it doesn't surprise me that it also happens in architecture.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  Try living in a dodgy Victorian conversion first. I'll take almost any new build over them.
  - exe34 3y ago
    Do you believe that all beautiful things are dodgy Victorian conversions?
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      I think the UK overprotects "historical" stuff to the point of degrading the life of it's people, and not in a small way.
      - exe34 3y ago
        This wouldn't be a problem if we built houses in proportion to population growth (whether through birth rate or immigration) - but we have so many landlords in parliament, that we can't really do anything that would threaten to reduce the growth of house prices.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  That's one opinion to hold if you are cynical enough or young enough not to remember stuff changing over time. For example, if you are old enough to witness the transition you can remember how much a fresh breath of air was moving away from the clutter and pertinaciousness of post modernist interior design into the functional and comfortable minimalism then only to go the the next phase seeking some more cozy spaces once the minimalism begin feeling impersonal and cold and then the designers remember how cool and inspiring some stuff from the 60s and 70s were.

by mrtksn 3y ago

sloowm 3y ago

Judging the quality is possible to an extent IMHO. You can see if an artist practiced their skills and techniques and you can see if precise pieces were done with care for instance. From the pictures it looks like there are parts that show real care but other parts that are kind of messy and maybe more half finished projects.

mrtksn 3y ago
That's just production precision, which I appreciate but many significant art pieces don't have much of that. If you don't like it, you don't like it(I don't like it too, I value mastery) but that doesn't say much about the quality or more importantly significance of the art.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Having at least one objective characteristic somewhere, somehow, is more than zero though.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    I don't know, it's like a having an essay with no grammatical errors. Does it make the essay any good? Sure, having a great essay written with lots of typos and grammatical errors can be hard to consume but on the other hand we, in the internet age, have some great stories called "copypasta" written horribly and people love those. They are culturally significant artefacts of a time period of the internet culture and their production is not so good. We have "HODL" which is a cultural phenomenon, which itself is a typo. We have numerous memes images of cultural significance which is made with very low production value because their original makers had a great idea but not very good image editing skills. I don't think that "production correctness" or "precision" is a metric that art can be evaluated on.
    - sloowm 3y ago
      In the case of an essay the quality can maybe be seen in correct grammar but mostly by the writer being able to convey the story well, make sentences people want read and other things. A cultural phenomenon is not art in my opinion. I think things can be made by people and found interesting and well liked without them being art just as a natural phenomenon can be interesting and well liked.
- sloowm 3y ago
  Production precision is just one of the examples I gave. There are other things that can indicate the quality as well. In this particular case the art is painting and sculpting and those can be done with more and less quality. Of course there is modern art where it can seem like anything can be considered art but even in those cases there is often work and talent involved. Maybe it's through the selection of which works to make public or the storytelling with the art pieces or coming up with new experiments.
jmull 3y ago
But isn't it just your opinion that a quality work of art should appear to have a certain consistent high level of care throughout? It seems possible, if not likely, these were unfinished pieces that were in-progress when the artist died. Perhaps many of these would never have been finished no matter how long the artist lived. You might look at one and see what had gotten a lot of attention and what hadn't, maybe even see what had gotten attention first and what later, and wonder about exactly why. It's pretty interesting, IMO. Probably one good way to value art is its impact on the viewer. So that's obviously very subjective. But surely a variety is good. Or put it this way... the skillfully and richly crafted masterworks that you view in a museum are certainly worthy works of art. But if skillfully and richly crafted masterworks that you view in a museum are one of only a small set of forms of worthy works of art, you're putting art in a small, confining pen. That would really limit the impact it can have. Which, I think, means that's just a far too limiting a view of art.

dbspin 3y ago

Just to make a counter point - you're suggesting a completely modernist tabula rasa view of aesthetics, which doesn't seem to gel with observed human aesthetic preferences, whether in fine art or architecture. Our reactions to aesthetics are obviously culturally mediated, but that doesn't mean that they are exclusively culturally derived (culture too of course springing from shared evolution). Cross culturally to pick an uncontroversial example, we show a high expressed preference for windows, higher ceilings, less cramped rooms etc. This extends also to proportionality, symmetry, ornamentation etc. The very recent historic move away from aesthetically pleasing buildings has much more to do with economics and the priorities of industrial and post industrial society, than the choices of the citizens who have to live in frequently grim and alienating environments. Andries Kerpestien has a good series on some universal expressed aesthetic preferences in relation to architecture - https://casualrealism.substack.com/p/architecture-and-evolution-i-the?s=w https://casualrealism.substack.com/p/architecture-and-evolut...

mrtksn 3y ago
I agree with you completely about aesthetics, it's just that not all art or design has to serve the function of pleasing people. In some cases people want to induce fear, disgusts, sadness, sense of control, of greatness, of smallness, of oppression etc.
- dbspin 3y ago
  I might humbly suggest that architects and architecture should rarely if ever be employed to induce fear, disgusts, sadness, loss of control, smallness, oppression etc. That fact that it all too frequently does so, especially in public housing and industrial architecture is my point exactly.

veltas 3y ago

> there's lot's of buzz for example on Twitter about how some old stuff was beautiful and the new one is ugly. They are doing this for political propaganda and money Some of us really do prefer the old stuff, not just for the politics and money!

mrtksn 3y ago
Sure, its just something else when you try to push a point or stir a controversy by constantly repeating "why they don't make things like that anymore" without actually looking into why they stopped and why they don't anymore.
- veltas 3y ago
  I've often wondered if one reason we don't get amazing like-life paintings is because we have photos.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    We do get those, search for photorealistic paintings. It's just that they are not very popular and people don't value them much. They tend to be interesting only in the context of being a painting that looks like a photo. AFAIK with the proliferation of photography the people who used to do life-like painting of other people lost a lot of business and it seized being a profession.
    - veltas 3y ago
      I'm not literally saying we can't do them, just that as you say they're not popular.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  "because doing $contemporaryStyle is cheaper and more broadly appealing, and might even have some practical benefits. And it's cheaper not just because it's inherently more optimized or because labor is more expensive than it was back then, but because being the only one doing $oldWay means you don't have any scaling benefits and will struggle to find labor. Going with the herd is just inherently better value for money". There, free premise for a 1h youtube video. Just adapt it to architecture or cutlery or something.

exe34 3y ago

People tear down beautiful things and replace them with crap, because what's wrong with the beautiful thing is that it wasn't made by them. They want to leave their mark, like a dog pissing on a lamp post. We see it all the time in software UI, so it doesn't surprise me that it also happens in architecture.

dukeyukey 3y ago
Try living in a dodgy Victorian conversion first. I'll take almost any new build over them.
- exe34 3y ago
  Do you believe that all beautiful things are dodgy Victorian conversions?
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    I think the UK overprotects "historical" stuff to the point of degrading the life of it's people, and not in a small way.
    - exe34 3y ago
      This wouldn't be a problem if we built houses in proportion to population growth (whether through birth rate or immigration) - but we have so many landlords in parliament, that we can't really do anything that would threaten to reduce the growth of house prices.
mrtksn 3y ago
That's one opinion to hold if you are cynical enough or young enough not to remember stuff changing over time. For example, if you are old enough to witness the transition you can remember how much a fresh breath of air was moving away from the clutter and pertinaciousness of post modernist interior design into the functional and comfortable minimalism then only to go the the next phase seeking some more cozy spaces once the minimalism begin feeling impersonal and cold and then the designers remember how cool and inspiring some stuff from the 60s and 70s were.